MOSCOW, Idaho — This was just what the doctor ordered for the University of Hawai'i football team.

Also, the head coach, the defensive coordinator, the athletic director ...

Well, truth be told, it was for just about everybody who had watched the Warriors' defense take its considerable lumps in a 63-17 loss to No. 1-ranked Southern California and a 42-14 defeat by Michigan State.

The Warriors' first shutout in 77 games, a 24-0 thumping of Idaho last night, couldn't have come at a better time for a UH defense in considerable need of an elixir.

After giving up a combined 105 points in back-to-back losses, the Warriors whipped up their own remedy, a hard-hitting, heady blanking of the Vandals.

Not since a 20-0 win at Southern Methodist in September of 1999, the first road game in the June Jones era, had the Warriors thrown a shutout. That one ended a UH record 15-game road losing streak. This one, while not quite as desperate, retired a six-game losing streak and, more important, allowed UH to leave behind a lot of the demons of the USC and Michigan State shellackings.

And the Warriors did it in the school's first indoor game, a Kibbie Dome setting that seemed perfect for an arena league-type scoring contest.

"I think we showed some people we can play good defense," said linebacker Tanuvasa Moe, whose team-leading eight tackles and a couple kidney-rattling hits that put an exclamation on the effort.

Mostly, though, the Warriors seemed to show themselves, which is more important.

"We needed something like this," said defensive end Ikaika Alama-Francis.

"We'd been a frustrated team," said defensive coordinator Jerry Glanville.

Indeed, you could sense the Warriors' confidence growing by leaps and bounds each time the defense left the field while forcing the Vandals to punt on 10 of 12 possessions. (The other two came on the end of the first half and an interception.)

"After the first half we just wanted to keep on shutting them out," Moe said. "It was such an awesome feeling."

Not since 1987, when UH limited Yale to 136 yards, had UH held and opponent to so few (153) yards total offense.

For a remarkable 21 minutes and 22 seconds last night — the limited time Idaho's offense had the ball thanks to the combination of a ball-control UH offense and an emboldened Warrior defense — it was almost as if the first two games of the season had never happened.

Which was part of Glanville's pregame message. "From our first game I showed them 15 of the best plays I've seen, but not two in a row," Glanville said. "From the Michigan State game I showed them 20 perfect plays but no two in a row. And, I asked them, 'What if you did half those plays (together)?' "

Pity poor Idaho — and not just for its 0-4 record and numerous dropped passes, either.

Here the Vandals thought that, in joining the WAC, they were getting into an offensive league. Here, after casting longing glances at the WAC and its wide-open, pinball scores for years, they thought they'd found the perfect home.

And along comes UH, a team not known for its defense in the past decade, showing them there is some defense to be found, too.

On a night when Idaho had hoped to ring its victory bell loud and often, as is the custom when it scores a touchdown, the Vandals just got their bell rung by the UH defense instead.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.